I started out as an avid photographer but quickly realised that the only times I bothered lugging out my big DSLR camera was whenever I would go out for dinner. In 2008, I was watching Anthony Bourdain’s documentary of El Bulli “Decoding Ferran Adria”, the food he ate intrigued me in a way I cannot properly describe in words, that same year in October, just months after my birthday, I sent out a reservation request to El Bulli, I wrote how badly I wanted to eat at El Bulli and I even wrote a poem and had it translated to Spanish. In December 2008, I got confirmation of a reservation for August the following year, it was the first reservation I had ever made or gotten at a Michelin starred restaurant. Since then, I’ve begun a food journey and this is my journal of it.
I need to point out that I write for myself and myself only, but if anyone who stumbles upon this blog finds it useful, I would be over the moon that I managed to help. If you have any questions, if you would like to talk about food, if you want to ask about my photographs, or sign me up for junk mail, feel free to do so at Lennard2305@gmail.com, or add me on Facebook at Lennard Yeong.
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This is by far the best food blog I have viewed, the images you have taken are of amazing quality and this has been a huge inspiration for my dissertation. I am writing my dissertation on multi sensory dining and the future of molecular gastronomy. I was wondering if you had any views on how this style of dining has become a trend and is it here to stay? also how elements could be transfered to the mass market?
any help would be appreciated
thanks
Thanks Helena for the kind(but slightly exaggerated :p) words.
Its hard to answer your question fully, I think MG is so hard to define because it consists of so many different sub sections, this lack of clear definition has given many diners a muddled and inaccurate opinion of what to expect from MG. So much so that chefs have taken a strong disregard towards the term, it sets the diner up for false or unreasonable expectations of a meal(Im sure you know about Blumenthal, Adria, Keller, and Mcgees 2006 letter to The Times on the term)
I believe we are already starting to see a shift away from “MG” in general, just look at the Pellegrino top 50 list for the last 2 years, the “MG” restaurants seem to be slowly dropping, but I do feel that restaurants that are on the rise, such as Noma, do draw a lot of techniques and ideas commonly used in MG, but the food they put out feels like the emphasis is more about the ingredients and less about the technique; on the other hand, some of the ‘pure MG restaurants’ like Moto, WD 50, El Bulli, can feel like the food is slightly technique driven, and I believe I have read articles that this is the case at El Bulli, but they were always pushing boundaries and you know that if you see something new at El Bulli, you’re probably one of the first few people who might be eating the next ‘big thing’ in the culinary world. On that same note, some of the dishes at El Bulli were not meant to taste good, and were in fact there to evoke discussion and thought on food, some of the dishes at El Bulli were the most memorable Ive had, and not all of them were good. Ideally, where we go from here is to take these techniques and use them intelligently, if there is a logical and practical reason to place a foam on the plate, I say go ahead, but if a restaurant is turning every sauce they have into a foam, just so they can call themselves avant garde, or modernist, or MG, then I really doubt they’ll do very well.
Elements of MG have already rippled out into the mass market. El Bulli has their own MG starter kit, many companies have followed suit. It has become increasing accessible for the average home cook to find meat glue, to have a sous vide setup in their own home, to buy a smoking gun and so on. I feel that the easiest and quickest way for these “MG related techniques and equipment” to be transferred to the mass market is through cooking shows and celebrity chefs. There seems to be a huge craze for food shows in recent times, for example, sous vide cooking shows up in shows such as Masterchef, Top chef, Heston Blumenthal is probably UK’s most famous chef, and he is a strong advocator of SV cooking, this is such a quickfire way to garner public interest because these shows and celeb chefs have instant access to the average layperson, who would probably never have heard the term Sous Vide if he didn’t turn on his TV. The rules for the home cook are more constrained than they are for a restaurant, its harder to incorporate spherification and foams and olive oil powder into home cooking, where the end game is to alter textures, trust me Ive tried. But some techniques are definitely worth pursuing, such as sous vide(maybe Im biased), where the main goal is to achieve perfectly cooked meat consistently, something Im sure any person who has stepped into the kitchen would be interested in.
Really like your blog since you have so much about sous-vide. I was starting to think I was the only one on WordPress with regular sous-vide postings! I also like your photos and the way you provide all the facts about what you did with clear opinions and pros/cons. Great job!
Hey stefan, I checked out your blog. Lots of interesting sous vide experiments. I love the one with the beef, trying to trigger the calpain enzymes, I’ve read that blumenthal does that for his venison as well(which was the best sous vide piece of meat Ive ever had). I notice you often pre-sear before vacuuming, have you found any difference between pre vs post sear?
The point of searing post sous-vide is to get a crunchy crust on the meat (or crunchy skin on fish), because the crunchiness obtained by searing will disappear when you cook sous-vide. However, the advantage of pre-sear is that the searing (Maillard) flavors can enter more deeply into the meat and there is no chance of overcooking the meat as with post-sear. I also think pre-sear is in many cases more convenient. I will write a bit more about this on my blog.
Amazing blog….. Just stumbled upon…. As a NYC-er they are a dine a dozen…. Love the photos and the unbiased and unpretentious review of Per Se… On a personal note, no any place in NYC for hong kong style noodles with carmalized pork? Keep the posts coming!